Startups

How to Trick Out Your Startup's Office

Last week we showed you some of the startup world's most creative office spaces. These colorful environments with airy floor plans and comfortable conference rooms put the cubicle to shame — but before you start shelling out for employee skate parks and rock climbing walls, consider that not all office luxuries will serve your workspace equally well.

Mashable spoke with several startup employees to find out what they loved about their unconventional office spaces, and the results were fairly unanimous: An open floor plan and quirky extras encourage communication, collaboration and general satisfaction far more than cramped cubicles.

"The more comfortable our employees feel in the office environment, the more comfortable they are to speak up and share their opinions and insights with the team," ZocDoc CFO Netta Samroengraja says in an e-mail.

Most startups have certain crucial design elements in common. These include employee lounge areas with cozy seating and colorful accents, snack-filled kitchens where employees can chat as they refuel and TV monitors used for everything from video-conferencing to gaming.

Startups with enough square footage also tend to shell out for recreational spaces — ZocDoc has a game room outfitted with beanbag chairs, a ping-pong table and an acoustic guitar — that contribute to a playful work environment that's not just about punching the clock.

Some office add-ons will make sense for only a small segment of businesses; TastingTable, for instance, rents a test kitchen and dining room staffed with two full-time chefs near its SoHo offices. The extra kitchen space is a boon for the food-and-drink newsletter, but is probably a less prudent investment for a software firm.

At Zazzle's sprawling Redwood City headquarters, everything from the communal desks to the wallpaper was custom-made to reflect the company's design-it-yourself ethic, according to co-founder and CTO Bobby Beaver. Likewise, Etsy takes a DIY approach to office design with colorful knickknacks, quilts and plushies, all made by Etsy sellers. "My apartment is so boring compared to the office," says Sarah Starpoli, Etsy's Employment Experience Manager.

Quirky office additions such as HowAboutWe's popcorn machine — which one employee assures us is regularly put to good use — or Zazzle's ping-pong table may not rank as "strictly necessary" for your startup, but they undoubtedly contribute to a more welcoming work environment. "Go to your local IRS office to get a taste of the dark side of an office landscape," Squarespace's director of interface, Michael Heilemann, suggests.

There is, however, a fine line between a morale-boosting office perk and a misallocation of your startup's precious funds. So, when you're decorating that new exposed-brick loft space, go the more sensible route and avoid the 10 extravagant accessories in the gallery below — ball pits, bike repair shops and Bengal tigers are on the list — that only Google and Facebook can really afford, at least until you've made your first million.

Things Your Startup Probably Doesn't Need

1. A Vintage Camper Trailer

Online T-shirt retailer Threadless's Chicago headquarters include a few extravagant (and extremely cool) design elements, including graffiti-ed walls and a slick gaming space. They also have a vintage Airstream camper trailer, which, while stylish, should not be your startup's first investment.

2. A Bike Repair Shop

Facebook's mammoth Menlo Park campus houses everything from a dentist's office to a video arcade. A bike repair shop -- another of Facebook's many on-site amenities -- is no doubt handy for all your hip cycling-enthusiast startup employees, but you probably don't have the square footage to make it happen.

4. A Cave

Swedish Internet provider Bahnhof's data center is set into a mountain face and can apparently withstand the blast of a hydrogen bomb, so it's no surprise that architects decked it out to look like an underground cave, complete with rolling fog and waterfalls. We're sure it's a cool place to visit, but as a work environment it will make you feel too much like a Bond villain.

5. A Rock Climbing Wall

LivingSocial's Washington, D.C. event space, located near their main offices, used to house a rock climbing wall in addition to state-of-the-art test kitchens for visiting chefs. The space -- and the wall -- were prudent purchases, however, since LivingSocial uses the space to host classes for paying customers.

6. A Bathtub (In an Aquarium)

Google is known for its extravagant headquarters, and its Zurich outpost is no exception. The office includes a blacklit room full of aquariums where employees can relax on recliners, or, bizarrely, in a bathtub. This is not a sage choice of seating for most startups.

7. Vintage Rollerskates

Airbnb's office decor mimics popular rental listings on the site, which is why the company's conference rooms are outfitted with quirky wall decorations like vintage typewriters and rollerskates. You might want to stick to slightly more conventional wall art; a stylized company logo should do the trick.

8. A Foursquare Court

9. A Couch Shaped Like an Octopus

Game developer Three Rings has an incredibly ornate and appropriately nerdly workspace. Their offices are done up in an underwater theme, with custom nautical scrolling on the bookshelves, picture frames and archways -- plus a massive couch shaped like an octopus. All we can say is, "Avast ye, mateys!"

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